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End Times, Nutty Times

Here’s a surefire recipe for a hit television miniseries: Combine the most exciting aspects of The DaVinci Code with the apocalypticism of the wildly popular Left Behind novels, and toss in a bit of The X-Files for good measure. That was probably the logic, or illogic, behind NBC’s new s

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Sex and Reality in the City

Sarah Jessica Parker has spent a lot of time at America House. Well, not really. But over the past several years, the cast and crew of the popular, and soon to be departed, HBO series Sex and the City (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET) have frequently been spotted filming on our block in midtown Manhattan, have d

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God and the New Fall Shows

This year the question of which new fall shows to review proves unusually easy. For two new series feature a character familiar to readers of this magazine: God. In CBS’s wonderfully inventive new drama Joan of Arcadia (Friday, 8-9 p.m. ET), the teenage Joan, daughter of the local police chief

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The Year in TV

Certainly the biggest story in and on television this year was the war in Iraq. The calculated decision by the Pentagon to embed in the theater of war all manner of journalists (including reporters from MTV and Men’s Health magazine) greatly increased the quantity of news stories filed during

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Reality and Morality

Each day The New York Times, like most newspapers, publishes a television listing that includes a rundown of the day’s movies. But unlike most newspapers, the Times offers its own quirky assessments of these films, with an admirable economy of words.The paper’s reviewers are generous to

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The New Fall Shows

Here’s a question about the shows that have debuted during the past few weeks: What’s with all the cop/detective/law/forensics shows these days? C.S.I., C.S.I. Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, Judging Amy, N.Y.P.D

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The Year in TV

It would be difficult to discuss the past year of television without first addressing the effects of Sept. 11 on the medium. Initially, pundits foresaw a dramatically altered post-9/11 TV landscape. After all, the first days after the terrorist attacks saw television at its near-best: solid coverage

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Television After Sept. 11

In light of the events of Sept. 11, television seemsif this is possibleeven more banal than before. Despite the estimable Walter Cronkite's pronouncement at the much-delayed 2001 Emmy Awards that television helps to unite us and heal us and blah, blah, blah, it's hard not to look on the majo

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The Year in TV

Over the past few years, leaning and loafing at your ease, as Walt Whitman would say, when you pondered the coming of the year 2001, what came to mind? Did you imagine yourself strapping on your personal jet pack, à la George Jetson, and zooming off to a high-tech job in some space pad? Or did you

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